The "eye" is really a ring of dust surrounding nearby star HR 4796A, located in the southern constellation Centaurus. SPHERE's creators designed their instrument to reduce the glare from very bright stars, hoping to glimpse many more exoplanets hidden in alien solar systems.

Oregon's fire season started three weeks early this year, inaugurated with a fast-growing fire dubbed Two Bulls. Located northwest of Bend, Oregon (map), the fire had scorched more than 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares) of land as of June 9.

Crews are using helicopters and air tankers to drop water and fire retardant on the blaze, hoping to snuff it out before the flames reach Bend. In an image taken June 7, an MD-87 air tanker drops a line of bright orange fire retardant ahead of some flames.

Cassini took the original images on June 11, 2004, during its only close flyby of Saturn's outer moons. NASA re-released the pictures to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the spacecraft's pass, which preceded its first arrival at the ringed planet.

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Photograph by European Southern Observatory, NOAJ

An artist's conception of a gamma ray burst—the most powerful type of explosion in the universe—highlights swirls of gas and dust. The illustration, released on June 11, demonstrates the environment in galaxy GRB 020819B, which played host to one such explosion.

Researchers have yet to see an actual gamma ray burst, which can pump out as much energy in its initial seconds as the sun will in its ten-billion-year lifetime. Instead, they must rely on studying their aftereffects.

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Photograph by Julian Tempelsman, National Geographic Your Shot

The Milky Way galaxy cuts across a star-filled sky over Martha's Vineyard on June 8, in an image submitted by YourShot member Julian Tempelsman.

Our sun blasted out two X-class flares—the strongest category—about an hour apart on June 9. The image above shows the first of the two flares, captured in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The same region of the sun gave off a third X-class flare and a medium-size flare on June 10.